Bela's a Day Late and a Dollar Short

[Bela]

Thanks for popping in, krystalynn, Angela & Andrea!


April 4

The Bird-Man

His camo snagged as brambles crunch,
he slithers in the cloaking fog--
with booty smugly in his clutch
he chuckles through the nightly slog.

A feather here, a wisp of felt,
a twig to mark a limblike perch,
a dash of red, and thus his church's
congregation's hand is dealt.

For placement every care he heeds--
a tricky business--just enough
of mottled bracken, broken reeds
and smoothly half-obscuring rough.

A Bristled Curlew, Short-eared Owl,
a Kingbird cloaked in stately gray;
the rarest of the rarest fowl
so seldom spotted, night or day--

A Giant Ibis, Little Dodo,
Kakapo and Painted Snipe--
his masterpiece, a Noisy Scrub-bird
built of cleaners for a pipe.

And every night the proud creator
flits from marsh to wooded hills
and scatters like the eggs of Easter
peeking feathers, beaks and bills.

And one by one the sightings mount--
binoculars and telescopes,
their fuzzy focus gears of hope
proclaim the paucity of doubt.

A cheeky gift, the bird-man gets,
a tad deceitful, rather cheap,
but life's a tough enough conceit
so why not leave it what it's left?

[5th column]

I was looking for the hiccup in the meter of the last and couldn't find one I thought it was about to happen on the line break on church's ​*quietly envious of people who do form of any kind*

[Bela]

Many thanks, 5th! I find a little rhymthic doggerel a good way to thaw my inner censor.

[Bela]

April 5

Mobile poem swiped with a bandaged thumb

Let the autocorrects fall where they may,
nor the poor man's out of a muttered dictation
On the chocked bus grant a stay
This will be an act of Leith
Sit, I mean shit, I me want meant purity
A busy no burst of free unfettered expression
Torrent of crisp is shining fick duck fick fick rakt fuck! Imagining
Enabled by the greatest gadget, the slickest block
Of Hexham damn trench damn tech the world's greatest silicon held no geeks could concordat duck fick fick fuck concoct.
In my ha and hand, with swaddled thumb I hold
A slice of genius and thousand times the weight
Of that which sent Alki Apollo spinning minnesord Mongewell moonward.
The skies sky's the limit, the tools tool's a Bob boon
Held only by the fourth girth of my imagining.
Is this the best they can do?

[Dunc]

Bela

Who'll come a-waffling Matilda with me? (as we say). Your poem's a cheerful declaration of arbitrary independence.

The second one reminds me of Good King Wenceslas, trudging through the snow fully laden. Enjoyed the rolling finish too.

Your ice cream technique has an attractive rhythm as well. What flavour is it?

Your Bird-Man models birds with feathers and the like from the wild? If not, I'm a bit lost, though that happens often enough.

Is this the best they can do? indeed — funny, sonic and deft.

It's a warm feeling to have you join us this NaPo.

Regards / Dunc

[Bela]

Many thanks for popping in and commenting, Dunc. It's great to be slowly reviving this atrophied chunk of my skull after how-many-years-I-dare-not-speculate.

I was going for something a little different on Bird-Man, but maybe I didn't leave enough clues lying around. That also tends to happen!

Cheers,

Bela

[Featherless Biped]

"Waffling Matilda" is a great phrase; it steals the show on April 1st.

April 2, to me, ends on an intriguing "house that Jack built" note. I think the sentence structure helps it build up some nice momentum.

Very nice irregular iambic rhythms in "homemade ice cream"--echoing the sound of the ice cream maker. (I think you capture it just right; my mom had a hand-cranked machine that she used to keep us kids out of trouble.)

"The bird man" reminds me of Swampland--I also love how his distribution of bird characteristics turns him into a mad Easter bunny.

I didn't quite catch the speaker's meaning in the mobile phone poem, but I think I catch the implied author's drift. "fick duck fick fick rakt fuck" came through clear as day.

[Andrea345]

consider breaking dictation at "dictaaaa"

and break some more lines in this 'un

[Bela]

Rachael, Andrea, thanks a million for stopping by and feedbacking!

[Bela]

April 6

Tomorrow's Poem

At the stroke of one, a cornea wriggles,
shrinks to a pin in the bottom-up glare
of HD scrawls on gorilla glass,
the swanning of the Trump.

At the stroke of two it's Scorsese and Jagger
surprisingly tangled, and the mass
of a coconut blooms on the wrist,
riveted. At three,

insomniac island gently succumbs
to the moist weight of a greenhouse hood
while the waves swamp the shore, lap the trees,
douse the volcano

but heels are yanked in
a hair from the shark teeth
and the raft yaws and pitches,
dips for the space of a gasp, then erupts
at the stroke of six.

A chatter of magpies, squealing of brakes,
a singing bowl fades to a breath--

at the stroke of one, a cornea shudders.

[Steven]

'Homemade Ice Cream' -- there's something sinister in this ('squeals', 'shriek', 'viscous', 'murmurs'). But having read other comments perhaps I'm just not getting it. Interesting though.

[Bela]

Hi Steven, thanks for commenting. Yes - it's not about dessert. I'm rarely 100% sure what my subconscious is trying to tell me, but in this case it had something to do with the accelerating disintegration of a relationship seen through the eyes of children. I'm glad at least a hint of something or other came across.

[Bela]

April 7

Looking Back

Thursday's rain slaps the red roof of a lost decade—
rat-a-tat smack, ricochet—
the earthenware veins gape open
to brown roots strained like fingers cramped
in the grip of a wasting disease—
drops find a channel
to the spores that gloat
in the murk and the stain
spreads on Stockholm white.

A bucket won't cut it—this roof
is coming down.

[JFN]

Bela, good to see you NaPoing.

I like the image of the plastic strip wind blown against the lilac, and the sentiment of the last line seems very appropriate for NaPo.

The metrical rhythm at the end of #2 is nice, as is the house slips smoothly cooler.

The sounds of the ice-cream maker. The repetition works well, and the assonance is appropriate to the sounds being described. Nicely done.

The Bird-Man is really well worked in terms of both rhyme and meter, and isn't lacking at all in imagery either. If I'm reading it correctly, which isn't all that likely, he's leaving fake birds in the branches for the bird spotters to spot? Maybe not. Enjoyed it though.

Mobile Poem... is truly great fun. I sometimes wonder about leaving autocorrects in but can never bring myself to do it, apart from all the ones I miss of course.

There's something very unsettling about Tomorrow's Poem that suits the idea of insomnia well. The change of pace between S3 and S4 works really well to this end.

like fingers cramped / in the grip of a wasting disease is good. It's Stockholm white a reference to furniture or furnishings of some sort? gloat is a great word choice.

It's nice to read your work.

John

[Bela]

Hi John, many thanks for the thorough reads and encouraging comments.

Cheers,
B